Graduating
by ThoseCunningFolk
Summary: "People don't change until they're presented a reason." When it is time to walk away, what do you take with you? One shot. Drarry. Fluffy/prosy. Draco's POV before graduating, immediately following the final war.


" **People don't change until they're presented a reason." –Anonymous**

I couldn't say that I found a graduation to be tasteful in the wake of a war. The Great Hall had been restored to its elegant beauty, but the rest remained in ruins. I would have rather taken my diploma and walked out on the most painstaking reminder of memories begging to be hidden.

But now that I was here, I dared once more to take a final look at my childhood.

The Slytherin common rooms were untouched. Colder, but the same. The Quidditch pitch was nothing more than a dug-up field. I couldn't even find half my classrooms through the rubble. I made one final stop on my way to the Great Hall.

The entryway staircase. This was the first room I had stepped foot in; my first impression of what would be my home for ten months of a year. I found what I expected. Tarnished gold, chipped stairs, and broken stones. But I found something else, too. Half a flight of stairs below me was the unmistakably chaotic hair of Harry Potter. His cap was lying beside him, and his head was resting on his knees. The way his shoulders shook gave him the impression that he was crying. I tried to turn away, but a stone gave way beneath my feet and tumbled in the dramatic silence.

Harry jumped and looked over his shoulder. The candle light that glimmered off his face removed any doubts that he had been crying. But as soon as he saw me, he turned his back, and I saw him rub furiously at his cheeks. I knew that this was my chance to escape. He wasn't talking to me, not even to make some snide remark.

Maybe that was why my traitorous feet carried me ten steps down to stand above him. Harry didn't look up.

"Not now," he whispered. It sounded like a plea, and made me uncomfortable, as though he thought I'd so blatantly lash out at him on such horrible terms. And it was strange to see him so broken. He looked more confident when he was lying dead at Voldemort's feet.

I took two steps down and sat beside him. He hid his face farther into his knees and wrapped his arms around them.

I had no idea what to say. I removed my cap and carefully, placed it on my knees, and ran my fingers through the green and black tassel. I wracked my mind for something, anything, to say now that I trapped myself on these crumbling steps.

"Thank you," I decided.

There was a pause, and then a muffled, "What?"

"You came back for me in the Room of Requirements," I said. "You know…. Thanks for that. It was partially my fault that it burned down in the first place…. Well, not really. Only a dolt would realize that place was kindling."

Harry paused again, but he moved a little to place his chin on his arms, exposing his face. His glasses were gone, allowing me to see how red the corners of his eyes were. He'd been crying for a while.

"Is that all you came here to say?"

"No," I said. "I didn't come looking for you. We just happened to turn up in the same place and I saw you and…."

Harry nodded. "Well, thanks. You don't have to stick around."

"I don't have to do anything," I said. Malfoy motto. "I stayed because it was my idea."

"Oh." Harry pulled off what resembled a smile, but it was shaky. "Well, I appreciate that, but I'm kind of a mess right now if you hadn't noticed."

"I noticed."

Harry rested his head against his arms, but not to hide. He just looked tired.

"Why are you here?" I asked curiously.

"Ron's acting like troll snot."

His honesty took me aback.

"I've been telling you _that_ for seven years," I told him. "All the Weasleys are."

"What about the Malfoys?"

 _Touché_.

"What did the Weasel do this time?"

His head twisted back and forth against his knees. "You wouldn't care."

"Try me."

"I told him I was gay. He told me to go to hell."

I couldn't say I saw that one coming. Perhaps I had doubted his sexuality a few times, but never his friendship. Harry laughed at my face, which I quickly fixed to appear unfathomable.

"Great," he said. "Now you know, too. How long do you think it will take for the whole school to know? Unless they do already."

"I didn't," I said. Technically. "And I'm walking with the school's unofficial gossip columnist."

Harry snorted. "Great. At least Parkinson doesn't know. Maybe graduation won't be as awful as I thought."

"I don't know," I said. "We walk in forty minutes and you're a bigger disaster than the castle. People might stare."

His silence made me feel a little guilty for the joke. Joking wasn't usually my thing—but now I had to at least say _something_ so I didn't come off as a complete prat, after everything.

"This is where we first met," I remarked, glancing around. "I offered to be your friend, told you that Weasley wasn't worth the lint on his sweater, or something to that effect. It's kind of funny, to think we started on the same stairs we'll end on."

The thrown-together sentiment impressed even myself. Harry laughed and rubbed his nose against the sleeves of his robes.

"We didn't meet here."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Did I see you on the train?"

"No," said Harry. "Well, maybe. But we met in Madame Malkin's Robe Shop."

"Oh."

Now I felt uncomfortable. Not only had my story be tarnished, but I also didn't _remember_ meeting him in the robe shop. I stopped to think. Maybe it was memory, or maybe it was creativity, but I could just about see him standing next to me in his oversized clothes and crooked glasses. And then I knew I remembered, because it had been the first time I'd noticed how green his eyes were. They weren't that murky, mossy-kind-of-brown color. The kind of green that was hard to look at for only a single moment.

"I wonder what would have happened," he said, voicing my thoughts. "You know, if maybe it had turned out a little bit different. If I'd shared a compartment with you. If maybe I hadn't been so stupid to turn you away. Hell, maybe I wouldn't be sitting here right now."

And I asked myself the same question. Would we have grown up together? Sent letters all summer? Snuck out early in the morning to play Quidditch? Stayed up in Slytherin Common Room laughing about something stupid Weasley did? Would he have been a Gryffindor at all?

No matter how much I wondered, those questions would never be answered. What if all those moments could still happen? Surely this wasn't the end of our growing; I only just started making decisions for myself. It couldn't be too late to start over.

With what little courage I had left, I stood and extended my hand to him.

"If you don't take my hand this time," I said, "I will have to slap you with it."

Harry surprised face turned into a snort of laughter. He bit his lip, but hesitantly slid his tear-stained fingers into my hand. With a bit of stumbling on both our halves, I was able to pull him to his feet. And now that we standing face to face, I noticed his eyes again. Even though they were rimmed with pink, his irises weren't any duller in green than they had been when we were younger. If anything, the shimmering candle light made them brighter.

I became acutely aware that I was still holding his hand and prepared to jerk away, but then it occurred to me that he hadn't let go either. Maybe my registered confusion showed on my face, because he glanced at our hands and, with an expression of shyness I'd never seen on his face face, let go.

"Thank you," he said. "Slapping me won't be necessary. Today."

"Want me to walk you to the restroom so you can wash up a little?" I said. "There's time."

"It's okay," said Harry. "I'll be fine on my own…. But how would you feel about walking with me at graduation?"

"You don't have a partner yet?"

"I do," said Harry. "But I kind want to avoid him for a while."

 _Weasley_ , I realized. _Duh. Of course they'd make arrangements to walk together. But I already have Pansy…. Pansy or Potter?_

"Sure," I said. "I guess it'll be like walking up to the sorting hat all over again, only this time you're actually making the right choice of who to walk with."

Harry laughed. I noticed that for someone so upset, he'd been doing that a lot. It inflated my ego more than it probably should have.

"Who knew you were one with words," said Harry. "I mean, I always knew you had a colorful vocabulary and all, but still…. Can I meet you by the doors to the Great Hall before we start lining up?"

"Yeah," I said. And to his retreating back, asked, "Wait, how are we going to walk? Hold hands? Link arms? Stand at arm's reach away?"

Again, Harry laughed. "I'll hold your hand. Then we can squeeze each other's in warning if something about be thrown at our heads."

I grinned as he disappeared up the stairs, quite certain he knew Weasley wouldn't pull a stunt like that in a crowd. Whistling merrily, I left to tell Pansy who her new partner would be.

I let go of Harry's hand twice. Once to sing our anthem, and once to walk across the stage and grab my diploma. Otherwise, we held on tightly. His grip was especially rough when we bowed our heads in memory of the people who died in the war. Judging from the scornful gazes, my parents took notice.

But I didn't mind, because while I droned out Hermione Granger's speech, I came to a final resolution of my own. There was a difference between graduation and graduating. Graduation was getting dressed up in semi-formal clothing covered by zip-up robes and walking across a stage to have your tassel turned from one side of your cap to the other. Graduating was taking your diploma and walking away with everything you earned.

Even if you didn't earn it until the last forty five minutes.


End file.
